Recycling
Currently, Halwell is the waste management, sorting, storage and collection centre of recyclable waste. Venus recycled 5 tonnes of packaging material in 2008. Each Venus Café van backhauls some or all of its waste stream daily to the central distribution centre where it is then taken direct to a commercial recycling depot at zero additional cost. The company has exemptions from the Environment Agency for this activity.
We are currently in the throes of examining how we can come up with a better solution for recycling at our cafes. While we separate and recycle boxes, cooking oil & glass bottles when we receive products at our back door which we can recycle ourselves through our central distribution centre, we are not allowed to use Council recycling or recycling centres for any waste streams from the general public. It has proved almost impossible to find a commercial operator to travel the distance to service our recycling needs at the cafés. While we continue to look for a sustainable solution, you can help to keep the beach clean by taking your rubbish with you and recycling it at home.
Other activities undertaken by Venus to support its recycling philosophy include:
- Encouraging suppliers to take their packaging away for recycling e.g. glass/plastic bottles
- Installing clearly marked, attractive old whisky bins at each café for different waste streams and messages on packaging to encourage customer recycling
- Using recycled materials for building projects
It is our intention to install our own composting facility in the future in order to reduce mixed-type municipal waste to landfill. We could then backhaul all our paper packaging and food waste as well - we need to invest some £70,000 to make this happen.
